The Queens Daughters in India by Elizabeth W Andrew and Katharine C Bushnell

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Title: The Queen's Daughters in India

Author: Elizabeth W. Andrew
Katharine C. Bushnell

Commentator: Josephine E. Butler
Henry J. Wilson

Release Date: November 4, 2014 [EBook #47288]

Language: English

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Transcriber’s Notes

The old-fashioned English names of towns and cities
in South Asia that are used in the text have been
retained. Variations in the spelling of other words
are unchanged unless noted in the following.

For a complete list of corrections, other changes,
and notes, please see the end of this document.

Clickable links to page numbers in the Table of
Contents appear as 32 rather than 32.
Similarly, links to footnotes in the text appear like
this[3] rather than being underlined like this[3].

THE QUEEN’S DAUGHTERS

IN INDIA.

BY

ELIZABETH W. ANDREW and KATHARINE C.

BUSHNELL.

WITH PREFATORY LETTERS BY

Mrs. JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER and Mr. HENRY J.

WILSON, M.P.

“Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.”

LONDON. MORGAN AND SCOTT,

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.

To be obtained from the

British Committee of the Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, 17, Tothill

Street, Westminster, S.W.;

And from the American Purity Alliance, United Charities’ Building, New York, U.S.A.

1899.

Entered, in the year 1898, by

Elizabeth W. Andrew and Katharine C. Bushnell,

At Stationers’ Hall, London.

DEDICATED

TO

JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER,

PROPHETESS OF THE TRUTH IN CHRIST JESUS; LOVER OF HOLY JUSTICE;

FRIEND OF OUTCAST WOMEN; LEADER OF “THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS”;

WHOM GOD HATH ANOINTED WITH HIS OWN PECULIAR JOY.

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BECAUSE, IN THE SPIRIT OF HER MASTER, SHE HATH

“LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED INIQUITY.”

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This little book is written under a deep sense of obligation to the womanhood of the world,

but more especially under a sense of duty to God. A group of women of the British
aristocracy have lifted their voices in advocacy of licensed vice; and their sycophants and
admirers in England and America are either re-echoing their plea or excusing their
conduct. The plea is made primarily for India, but incidentally for all Christendom, and
every effort is being put forth, openly or covertly, to contaminate public sentiment on this
point.

In five States of America, in a little over a year, the attempt has been made to secure

legislation for the compulsory periodical examination of women; and a strong organization
exists on both sides of the water to promote this infamous object. Under these conditions it
is a matter of grave moment that certain secular, temperance, and religious periodicals
which would have sounded a clear note of warning six months ago, are today being
deceived. They print the outrageous falsehoods that represent India as having become a
menace to the health of England because of the abolition of brothel slavery in that country.
Excuses are made for the shallow-brained sophistry of those who pretend that the
compulsory periodical examination of women can be divorced from the moral debasement
of women, and as though such compulsory examination were something quite unlike the
notorious Contagious Diseases Acts. High titles and famous names are quoted as a warrant
for advocating the iniquity; and certain men are being exalted as though famous temperance
advocates, who are not themselves total abstainers, and who are well-known public
advocates of licensed fornication. Thus is introduced into philanthropic movements of the
present day an element of fatal moral confusion, as though a person who boldly defies the
principles of ordinary decency in one direction could be received as a trusted and efficient
promoter of decency along another line; as though a man could be relied upon as an
advocate and apostle of that of which he is not an example. We do not doubt that some of
the persons who do these things are well-intentioned; but they expend their benevolence on
the wolf and forget the lamb. They would win others to play with them on the asp’s nest.

We have determined on our knees before God that those who advocate the compulsory

periodical examination of women shall do so knowing what it means, and knowing also
that their friends and neighbours understand what is being advocated.

We offer no apology for our plainness of speech; to employ smooth language and

obscure phrases in the present crisis would be to trifle with a deadly enemy—to toy with
the Indian cobra.

September, 1897.

From MRS. JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.

I wish that every woman in the United Kingdom could read this little book. It tells the

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truth, the terrible truth, concerning the treatment of certain Indian women, our fellow-
citizens and sisters, by the British Government. I believe if that truth were known
throughout the length and breadth of our land, it would become impossible for our rulers to
continue to maintain the cruel and wicked Regulations by which these Indian women are
enslaved and destroyed.

I am a loyal Englishwoman; I love my country. It is because of my great love for her that

I mourn so deeply over her dishonour in the promotion of such legislation and practices as
this book exposes, and that I will not cease to denounce the crimes committed in her name
so long as I have life and breath.

I thank God that the writers of this book have been raised up to plead the sacred cause of

Justice and of Womanhood; and I rejoice to know that God has bestowed on them a
measure of the fearless spirit of the faithful prophets and prophetesses of old, to rebuke
national sin and to preach repentance to the people.

Josephine E. Butler.

Feb., 1898.

From MR. HENRY J. WILSON, M.P.

Dear Friends,

I am glad you intend to reprint “The Queen’s Daughters in India.”
It brings home to many who will never read Blue Books the terrible facts about

officially-authorized vice; and it shows the moral aspects of the “Regulation” system,
which Blue Books never show.

I remember very clearly how your first Report, in 1892, of what you had seen,

impressed us all as a very careful record of a very careful investigation.

Then, in 1893, I was a member of the Departmental Committee appointed to hear your

evidence, when your clear testimony, which no cross-examination could shake, gave
abundant evidence of your close observation and the accuracy of your records.

The impression this made on me was only deepened when, in India, in 1894 (on the

Opium Commission), I saw one of the places you had described with such remarkable
closeness of detail.

It is deplorable that we should have to fight this battle again. But so it is. Princesses and

Titled Ladies have added their influence to that of the panic-mongering materialists, in the
endeavour to “make the practice of prostitution, if not absolutely innocuous, at least, much
less dangerous”—for that is, in the language of the Royal Commissioners of 1871, the
object in view.

I thank God, therefore, that you are able to visit this country again, to help us both by

voice and pen in the renewed agitation which is forced upon us.

Yours faithfully,

Henry J. Wilson
.

Feb., 1898.

CONTENTS.

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PAGE

Dedication
iii

Preface to First Edition
v

From Mrs. Josephine E. Butler
vii

From Mr. Henry J. Wilson, M.P.
ix

I. Cantonment Life in India
13

II. Seeking the Outcast
32

III. The Habitations of Cruelty
45

IV. The Contagious Diseases Acts
64

V. Pleading for the Oppressed
86

VI. Some Anglo-Indian Moral Sentiments
99

Appendices
113

THE

QUEEN’S DAUGHTERS IN INDIA.

I.

Cantonment Life in India.

A gentleman in India, who had spent many years in military service, told us the following

tradition:—

“In the year 1856, before the Mutiny, Lady —— was one evening riding out on

horseback at Umballa, unattended, when the bridle of her horse was suddenly seized by a
British soldier who was possessed of evil designs against her. Most earnestly she
protested against his violence, and remonstrated with him that, besides the wrong to her, to
injure one of her social rank would utterly ruin his entire future, as he would be flogged
and dismissed from the army in disgrace. Thereupon ensued a conversation in which he
pleaded extenuation for such a crime so successfully that she readily accepted his false
statement that there was excuse for vice when soldiers were not allowed to marry. After
that experience she sought opportunity to talk with high military officials concerning the
necessity of protecting high-born ladies from such risks, by furnishing opportunities for
sensual indulgence to the British soldiers, and the result was the elaboration and extension
of a system for the apportionment of native women to regiments.” We have never been able
to verify the exact truth of this incident, but it probably has a basis in fact. Yet it has had its
counterpart in a recent movement among the aristocratic women of England to re-introduce
the same wicked legislation. It is on this account that the authors have considered it
necessary to print a more extended account of the work in behalf of the women of India, in
which they have had a large share. If the exceedingly simple style in which they give their

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story seems to some readers almost an insult to their intelligence, and lacking in the
delicacy of touch that could be desired, it must not be forgotten for one moment that they
are writing with special regard for those in the humblest ranks of life, who have often had
scant opportunities for education; for it is upon the daughters of such that the oppressive
laws for the licensing of prostitution fall; and in large part the supposed advantages of
licensed prostitution accrue to the upper social classes, which are, in fact, the lower moral
classes. The crusade against licensed fornication is a war between respectable daughters
of the poor and rich and powerful men and women.

Whether the narrative given above be wholly true or not, the fact remains that when so-

called “Christian England” took control of “heathen India,” and plots of ground called
Cantonments were staked off for the residence of the British soldiers and their officers, full
provision was made for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. A Cantonment is a considerable
section of land, sometimes comprising several square miles; and within these Cantonments
much more arbitrary law prevails than the civil law by which the rest of the country is
governed. There are about one hundred military Cantonments in India. Sometimes these
Cantonments have few inhabitants besides the soldiers and a few traders in groceries, etc.,
for the soldiers; and again in some places a whole city has grown up within the
Cantonment, and many Europeans reside therein, feeling more safe in case of threatened
trouble from an uprising of the people against the Government, than outside under civil law
only. All the land of a Cantonment belongs to the Government, and in case of war the
military officials may seize, for residence, all the houses within the Cantonment without
regard to the actual owners of the buildings, and the commanding officer has the power of
expelling any one he pleases from the Cantonment, without assigning any reason for so
doing.

The system devised for furnishing sensual indulgence to the British soldier, and for

protecting him from diseases consequent on such indulgence, was commonly called the
Contagious Diseases Acts, but was carried out under Cantonment Regulations, and was as
follows in its main features:—

There were placed with each regiment (of about a thousand soldiers) from twelve to

fifteen native women, who dwelt in appointed houses or tents, as the case might be, called
“chaklas.” These women were allowed to consort with British soldiers only, and were
registered by the Cantonment magistrate, and tickets of license were given them.

Besides the “chakla,” i.e., the Government brothel, there was in each Cantonment a

prison hospital, in which the patients were confined against their will. To these Lock
Hospitals the women were obliged to go periodically (generally once a week) for an
indecent examination, to see whether every part of the body was free from any trace of
diseases likely to spread from them to the soldiers, as the result of immoral relations. The
compulsory examination is in itself a surgical rape. When a woman was found diseased,
she was detained in the hospital until cured; when found healthy she was given a ticket of
license to practise fornication and was returned to the chakla for that purpose.

In case a woman tried to escape from the chakla, or from the Lock Hospital, and was

apprehended, she would be taken to the Cantonment magistrate, who would punish her with
fine or imprisonment.

Even the price of the visits of soldiers to the chakla was fixed by military usage, and

was so low that the soldier would scarcely miss what he expended in vicious indulgence.
We have frequently heard in England that the officers sent out in the English towns to
secure recruits for the army hold out, as an inducement to young men to enlist, the fact that
a licentious life in India is so cheap, and that the Government will see to it that no disease
will follow the soldiers’ profligacy. But this last promise is altogether false, for statistics
show that with all their efforts diseases increase with the increase of licentiousness, with
small regard to the military surgeons’ efforts to make it physically safe.

When a regiment came into a large Cantonment where there were barracks, there was

generally a large Government brothel to which all the women were sent for residence, and
a guard in uniform looked after them. When the soldiers were camped out in the open field,
tents were set up for the women at the back part of the encampment. When the soldiers

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marched, the women were carried in carts, with British soldiers to guard them, or sent by
train to the destination of the regiment. In charge of the women was placed a superintendent
or brothel-keeper, called the “mahaldarni.” She also was expected to procure women as
desired; and we have ourselves read the official permits granted these women to go out to
procure more women when needed.

On June 17, 1886, a military order, known among the opponents of State regulation as

the “Infamous Circular Memorandum,” was sent to all the Cantonments of India by
Quartermaster-General Chapman, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the army in
India (Lord Roberts). But during the course of the enquiry of the Departmental Committee
of 1893, its real author was discovered to be Lord Roberts himself, not his Quartermaster-
General.

This Memorandum (Parliamentary Paper No. 197, of 1888) is a lengthy document, every

part of which has painful interest; but we can only give a faint outline. It specified certain
measures to be instituted as means for looking more carefully after the health of British
soldiers, and the observations therein were to be heeded by the “military and medical
authorities in every command” throughout India. (See Appendix A.)

This order said (and military orders are well-nigh inexorable): “In the regimental

bazaars[1] it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women, to take care that they are
sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses, and, above all, to insist upon
means of ablution being always available.” It proceeds: “If young soldiers are carefully
advised in regard to the advantage of ablution, and recognise that convenient arrangements
exist in the regimental bazaar [that is, in the chakla], they may be expected to avoid the
risks involved in association with women who are not recognised [that is, licensed] by the
regimental authorities.” In other words, young soldiers are not expected to be moral, but
only to be instructed as to the safest way of practising immorality. This remarkable
document goes on to suggest that young soldiers should be taught to consider it a “point of
honour” to save each other from contagion by pointing out to their officers women with
whom there was risk of disease. The document calls attention to the need of more women,
and the necessity of making the free quarters “houses that will meet the wishes of the
women”—in order, it is implied, that they may be the more easily lured to live in them.

The official record of what followed, as a result of effort on the part of under-officials

to carry out the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief (Lord Roberts) is truly shocking,
as might be expected. The officer in command of the 2nd Battalion Cheshire Regiment sent
the following application to the magistrate of Umballa Cantonment: “Requisition for extra
attractive women for regimental bazaar, in accordance with Circular Memorandum 21a.”
“These women’s fares,” it continues, “by one-horse conveyances, from Umballa to Solon,
will be paid by the Cheshire Regiment on arrival. Please send young and attractive
women, as laid down in Quartermaster-General’s Circular, No. 21a.” Then he added a
note to the effect that some of the women already at hand were not very attractive, adding:
“Application has been made to the Cantonment magistrate of Umballa for others, but up to
date none have arrived; therefore, it is presumed a great difficulty exists in procuring the
class of young women asked for.” Evidently it was an amazing thing to these self-styled
Christian military officials that heathen women would not flock to their slave pens!

Another commanding officer writes: “There are not enough women; they are not

attractive enough. More and younger women are required, and their houses should be
improved.” Yet another commanding officer writes: “I have ordered the number of
prostitutes to be increased to twelve, and have given special instructions as to the four
additional women being young and of attractive appearance.”

Such was the zeal for increasing the facilities for safe vice, provoked by such military

methods as described by this Memorandum, that the unwillingness of the native women to
plunge into a life of shame at the behest of their conquerors, received scant consideration.
A retired soldier, living at Lucknow, told us of his own observations a few years before:
that, if a native policeman saw a young girl talking indiscreetly, though innocently, with a
man, he would denounce her as a suspected prostitute; she would be brought before the
Cantonment magistrate, and be registered to live among the soldiers. He said the police

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made large sums of money by threatening to thus hand over girls to the magistrate, and
demanding bribes as the alternative of such a horrible fate. A Christian Englishman,
holding a responsible position under the Government, vouched for by the Editor of the
Bombay Guardian, relates what he saw in four Cantonments, where the instructions of the
“Infamous Memorandum” were carried out, in the following language:—

“The orders specified were faithfully carried out, under the supervision of

commanding officers, and were to this effect. The commanding officer gave orders to
his quartermaster to arrange with the regimental Kutwal [an under-official, native] to
take two policemen (without uniform), and go into the villages and take from the homes
of these poor people their daughters from fourteen years and upwards, about twelve or
fifteen girls at a time. They were to select the best-looking. Next morning, these were all
put in front of the Colonel and Quartermaster. The former made his selection of the
number required. They were then presented with a pass or license, and then made over
to the old woman in charge of this house of vice under the Government. The women
already there, who were examined by the doctor, and found diseased, had their passes
taken away from them, and were then removed by the police out of the Cantonment,
and these fresh, innocent girls put in their places.”

There is a whole volume of misery expressed in that last sentence, both for the fresh,

innocent girls, and for the diseased ones turned out of the Cantonment. It has been
repeatedly asserted that this system of regulating vice was so merciful, even to the girls;
for their diseases, it has been claimed, were never allowed to go beyond the initial stage.
But what this witness states is strictly in accordance with what we found to be the case.
When we visited some of these Lock Hospitals and examined the records kept there, we
noted that in the annual reports no cases of secondary stages of disease were mentioned;
but when we questioned the native physicians in charge as to whether these ever arose,
they answered that frequently such cases occurred, but when a woman became unfit to
practise prostitution, because of that fact, she was turned out of the Cantonment.

The British officials of India have not shown the slightest concern as to the spread of

disease, even when introduced by their own race among the natives, but have actually sent
these women abroad to scatter disease wherever they go. And what can a poor Army
slave-woman do when thus turned out? Her caste is broken, because she has lived with
foreigners, and her friends will seldom receive her back; she has been compelled to
follow the soldiers on the march; and when dismissed may be hundreds of miles away
from any human being who ever saw her face before. Practically almost every industrial
door in India is closed to women, the nurse-girl to foreign children being so exceptional as
not worthy of mention among the hundreds of millions of people. The Cantonment
sometimes includes all there is of city life in the whole region, and the woman has no
choice but the open fields or the jungle. God alone knows the fate of these helpless
creatures, and few beside care to know.

This was the exact state of things, with details too infamous to commit to paper, until

1886, when the Contagious Diseases Acts which had prevailed in the military stations of
England were repealed as the result of a remarkable crusade led by Mrs. Josephine Butler.
As the dependencies of Great Britain are all supposed to be governed by the same policy
as that of England the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts there virtually repealed them
in India. But it was not until 1888 that a despatch was sent to India by the Secretary of
State for India, whose duty it is to attend to such matters, declaring that the system was
“indefensible, and must be condemned.”

A copy of Lord Roberts’ “Infamous Memorandum” fell into the hands of a Christian

gentleman who sent it to England. It was there reprinted and distributed to every member
of the House of Commons, and created a great sensation, meeting with almost universal
condemnation. Following upon the popular indignation created thereby, the House of
Commons on June 5, 1888, passed a unanimous resolution that “Any mere suspension of
measures for the compulsory examination of women, and for licensing and regulating
prostitution in India, is insufficient; and the legislation which enjoins, authorizes, or
permits such measures ought to be repealed.”

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The publication of the “Infamous Memorandum” in England had shown that the existing

Indian Cantonment Acts must be condemned, and they were superseded by rules made
under a new law, the “Cantonments Act of 1889.” This was a very specious document,
which avoided the issue by merely placing unlimited powers in the hands of the Governor-
General in Council to “make rules consistent with this Act, for the prevention of the spread
of infectious and contagious disorders within the Cantonment.”

It was so recognised and pronounced upon by the newspapers of India, which favoured

licensed vice. Commenting on the new Cantonments Act one newspaper said: “The
religious fanatics who howled until a weak Government gave way to their clamour … will
probably howl again now at the way the old order of things will be enforced under another
name, but with very little difference in manner.” Another said: “Their phraseology is the
work of a master in the art of making a thing look as unlike itself as it well can be.” Many
others spoke in the same strain. Immediately the advocates of the abolition of licensed
prostitution took alarm, and began a vigorous remonstrance; for they saw great danger in
any law which put large discretionary power into the hands of officials. The late Rt. Hon.
Sir James Stansfeld, M.P., and Professor Stuart, M.P., addressed a letter to the Secretary
of State for India concerning this new Act, in which they said, among other things: “If our
interpretation of the new proposed regulations is correct, they may be used to set up again
a system of compulsory examination of prostitutes, and to regulate and license, within the
Cantonment, the calling of those prostitutes who submit to periodical examination, and to
certify and license those who are pronounced physically fit.”

The official reply from the Secretary of State for India was to the effect that the Home

Government was unwilling to believe, without positive proof, that this new Cantonments
Act would be used to foster licensed prostitution.

It should be explained here that Abolitionists have always recognised that to establish

the periodical examination is, in and of itself, to license prostitution; for there can be no
possible excuse for the reiterated examination of healthy women, in anticipation of
possible contagion, without recognising a certain right to practise prostitution, if the
women be pronounced medically “fit” for such a calling. The periodical examination of
women, then, constitutes the living heart of all those forms of legislation generally
comprised under the term, “The Contagious Diseases Acts,” by whatever local name such
regulations may be known.

We came to England in the winter of 1890–91, it being the first country visited by us on

a round-the-world journey for the World’s W.C.T.U., with which we were, at that time,
officially connected.[2]

During this visit we frequently met and talked with Mrs. Josephine Butler, known and

revered by lovers of purity throughout the world for her heroic service in the cause of the
Abolition of State Regulation of Vice. She expressed a strong desire that while in India in
the course of our journey we should make a careful investigation into the conditions
prevailing there, and learn, if possible, whether the resolution of the House of Commons of
June 5, 1888, was being obeyed. As already noted, this resolution demanded the repeal of
all measures that enjoined, authorized, or permitted the compulsory examination of women
and the licensing and regulation of prostitution. It was desired also that we should secure
for the use of Parliamentary members of the British Committee of the Federation for the
Abolition of State Regulation of Vice actual proof that the resolution was being disobeyed,
such as would meet the official demand for proof from the Secretary of State, before he
would be willing to believe that the new Cantonments Act was being used to foster
licensed prostitution. The mission was pronounced by Mrs. Butler “one of the most
difficult and even perilous missions ever undertaken in the course of our great crusade.”
After due consideration and prayer for guidance, we consented to undertake the task.

The British Committee of the Federation furnished us with all necessary official

documents with which to make ourselves thoroughly conversant with the history of the
C. D. Acts throughout the British dependencies in the Orient, and supplied us with a letter
of introduction to a staunch friend of the cause in India, with whom we were expected to
hold frequent consultations.

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We took our departure from England in the month of July, 1891, going first of all to

South Africa and labouring in the interests of our work there until the cold season set in
and we could proceed to India. Reaching India at the end of December, 1891, we
conveyed our letter of introduction to this confidential friend, who advised us to proceed
northward and consult with a friend of the cause who understood thoroughly the interior
life of the people, and, it was believed, would give great aid to our mission. Travelling
northward we arrived at the station designated, and sought an interview with this
gentleman.

We intimated to him what we hoped to accomplish in India, with a view to obtaining an

expression from him of his willingness to aid us. With consternation and embarrassment he
protested against our undertaking anything so foolish and impracticable, declaring from his
long experience that it was utterly impossible for women to get at the truth, and entreating
us to abandon so wild a project. When he saw that we did not yield the matter, he
questioned us as to what we were planning to do, how we should proceed to get
information in a country whose customs and language were so utterly unknown to us, and
concerning a military system with which, as Americans, we were quite unacquainted. We
withheld further confidence, simply saying with earnestness, “Whether this is practicable
or impracticable, women have a right to this knowledge; and we do not think it foolish or
impracticable to trust God to give us all the information we need, without human aid.”

He felt the most kindly interest in us personally, and manifested this by several practical

expressions; but doubtless he reasoned that he could not encourage us in what he believed
to be an impossible undertaking.

This experience drove us to God, our only helper. We were strangers in a strange land,

carrying the burden of a sacred secret which weighed us to the earth. After much prayer
and deliberation we called on the chief military surgeon in charge of the station hospital of
—— Cantonment. This official began almost immediately when we called upon him, and
entirely without suggestion from us, to deplore “the repeal of the C. D. Acts,” and, as he
claimed, the consequent increase of specific diseases. He showed us his daily report,
which illustrated what he said on this subject. These diseases, he said, were for the most
part contracted on the march or in the hills, especially at Ranikhet. This interview took
place on January 4, 1892.

The surgeon said he wondered that people did not, from the moral and religious point of

view, see the injury that the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was doing, not only to
the soldiers but to the whole country; “and,” he added, “we can do nothing.” We asked, “Is
there, then, no form of regulation now?” He answered emphatically, “None whatever.” He
said, “We can do nothing about the women outside the Cantonment, and there is the
trouble.” He added, “Those inside go on as they used to, and go to the hospital for
treatment when diseased. But,” he continued in an aggrieved tone, “this is absolutely
voluntary; we have no control.”

He said there was a European physician in charge of the hospital, to whom he had just

been talking regarding the matter when we came in. We said, “There is a European
physician in charge, then, is there?” He answered, “Yes; but the hospital is not for these
diseases only, but also for fevers, dysentery, cholera, and all diseases”; and that there
were men there as well as women. We asked, “Is the Lock Hospital, then, entirely
disused?” He replied, “Why, there is no Lock Hospital.” He added that many good people
were getting their eyes opened now as to the condition of things, and that even some
clergymen had the courage of their moral convictions, and had come out in favour of the
Contagious Diseases Acts.

Previous to leaving England we had received information concerning this Cantonment

and its Lock Hospital. Our information, compared with this official’s inconsistent
statements, convinced us that he was endeavouring to mislead us. After other and many
futile efforts to reach the truth, we gave ourselves up wholly to prayer, remembering the
promise, “They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them. I will
cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not
stumble.” We felt sure that any mistake at the outset of our work, such as giving confidence

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to the wrong person, or any indiscreet action that might betray our object in visiting India,
would be fatal to our purpose; therefore we cried to God to preserve us from impatience
and to keep our feet from stumbling.

We went next to Agra and remained there several days, wandering about the old fort and

other places of interest. But surely never was sadder sight-seeing! The way seemed utterly
closed against us. The work stretched, vast and difficult, before us, and those towering
thick walls that surround the fort, with a deep moat at their foot, represented to our thoughts
the pride, strength, and secrecy of the system which we sought to penetrate, and at other
times the barriers that separated us from the enslaved women whom we had come to India
in the hope of helping.

Nearly five weeks had gone by; the winter season was rapidly passing, and we were yet

without a single clue to guide us in our investigations.

One Sunday we set apart for fasting and prayer—in the morning instructing the native

servants at the Rest House where we were staying to leave us uninterrupted until the
evening, as it was a sacred day with us, and we wished to be alone. We locked our doors
and waited on the Father of spirits for guidance. Never shall we forget the hours of that
day. At the beginning our hearts seemed completely crushed under a sense of our absolute
helplessness and ignorance; but we know now that we were in the very place of power—
that it was only there that God could reveal Himself to our waiting spirits. It was at the
first, however, inexpressibly dark. Still we held on, in faith that light would come; and
before night, light was fully given to us both, as to our next step, which was that we were
to go to a friend in a neighbouring city and lay the whole case before her. We obeyed the
guidance; and although our friend was exceedingly hopeless as to our undertaking, yet she
was willing to give us the assistance of her quick intelligence and long acquaintance with
India. She proved of invaluable service to us in teaching us many simple colloquial
phrases, and inducting us into a knowledge of the customs of the country, thus making us
much more independent in our work and travels.

At this time it became clear to us that we must approach the whole question from the

native side. We had gained nothing in seeking information from European officials. Our
hope now lay in interviewing the native physicians and the women themselves. We did not
at first venture to ask the way to the Lock Hospital, taking it for granted that this term had
long before fallen into disuse, as the existence of this hospital was officially denied. But
after visiting various hospitals within a Cantonment, and failing to find the “Cantonment
Hospital” so called, which term we were told was now applied to the place for which we
were searching, we asked for the Lock Hospital, and to our surprise found that in common
parlance it was still so named. Our cab-drivers always understood instantly what we
meant when we used either this term or the native term, which means a hospital for
degraded women. Our first actual interview was held with the dhai, or nurse, and inmates
of a Lock Hospital. Besides much valuable information gained from them, we learned the
native name used to designate the quarters within the military Cantonments for degraded
women, viz., “The Chakla.”

From this time forward, our way became much more plain, as in the ten Cantonments

visited[3] we found that we needed only to give directions to our cabmen and they would
take us without hesitation both to the Lock Hospital and to the chakla, these places being
perfectly well known to the natives residing within the Cantonment.

These Cantonments are all under military rule. As our work lay only within the

Cantonments the military regulations, of course, applied to us. One of these rules made it
possible at any time for us to be excluded, for it refers to “persons whom the Commanding
Officer deems it expedient to exclude from the Cantonment, with or without assigning any
reason for excluding them therefrom” (Cantonments Act, chap. 5, sec. 26, clause 23). It
was necessary, therefore, that we should not attract attention to the fact that we were
making investigations as to whether the resolution of the House of Commons was being
obeyed or not by the military authorities. Had our errand been suspected, we could have
been sent out of the Cantonment at once, with no explanation and no opportunity for
redress. We therefore proceeded as quietly as possible.

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Towards the last our enquiries proceeded very rapidly, for we had learned to

accomplish as much in one day as would formerly have occupied a week. The winter
season was over, and we were now in the month of March, with the heat of the advancing
Indian summer daily increasing in terrible force, and becoming oppressive to our
unaccustomed Anglo-Saxon constitutions. We travelled by night and worked by day,
hastening on to the completion of our task. At times, arriving at our destination in the
middle of the night, we rested, exhausted, in the ladies’ waiting-room at the railway
station, where there were cane-seated settees, on which we spread our travelling rugs and
remained until the morning. A native woman was always in charge, and good refreshment-
rooms were at hand, so that we saved much time and avoided publicity in this way. We
often travelled in what were known as “intermediate compartments,” knowing that we
should attract less attention than as first or second-class passengers. We simply asked for
guidance at every step of the way through these months of anxiety and toil; and we knew
that our prayers were answered.

We had various interpreters. One of these was a specially gifted woman. She had a

sweet, plaintive voice, and sang the native songs with touching effect on the poor women
whom we visited; one we always recall as having been a wonderful instrument through
God of moving their hearts. It was a pilgrim hymn with a recurring strain of warning
against the love of the world, dress, jewellery, and sinful pleasures; and reminding us all
that this life is swiftly passing, and that death may soon overtake us. Often before the
refrain was finished the poor women would be seen sobbing as they listened, joining in the
sorrowful strain that recurred again and again; and as soon as the song was ended pouring
out their pitiful histories and their protests against the degradation into which they had been
thrust by the infamous system of legalised vice under which they were slaves.

II.

Seeking the Outcast.

A vivid scene comes before us: We are sitting on a mortar bench, built in a circular form

around the trunk of an old tree, in the open court of a Government chakla in one of the
Cantonments of India. Some thirty or forty girls come trooping around us, either sitting
down on the ground, native style, or bringing their cot-beds with them for seats.

Our sweet-voiced interpreter sings a plaintive song—native words and native tune—

and when she has finished there is scarcely a dry eye to be seen. Then follows a simple
Gospel message to which all give respectful heed, and at its close we ask, “Why are you in
such a place as this?” Several answer in brief monosyllables, accompanied by a gesture as
though drawing a line transversely across the brow. “It is our fate! It is our fate!” are the
words used in reply; and our interpreter explains to us that these believe, in accordance
with their religious instructions, that while they were yet babes, in an unfortunate moment,
when left alone by the mother, the messenger of fate entered the room and wrote the word
“prostitute” in invisible characters across the brow, and that from that moment to struggle
against the lot that awaited them would have been useless.

No wonder that such poor slaves, when once taken and placed with the British soldiers

by some wicked mahaldarni, never dream of trying to get away; and small wonder if others
who had hoped that a better fate might await them, and who make one ignorant, feeble
attempt to escape (and the women of a people whose customs keep them in perpetual
seclusion are extremely ignorant of the outside world) and are recaptured by the police,
will never be induced to try again, but quickly become convinced that their fate has been
also inexorably fixed from the cradle.

“But,” we say, “God is too good; He would not have it so.” And they reply hopelessly,

“But what can we do? We cannot starve; we cannot cut our own throats. Oh, that we might
die!”

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Then they begin to clamour for a chance to tell their individual stories. One is a girl who

was left an orphan at the age of six years. At the tender age of eleven she says she was
taken by an Englishman and kept three years as his mistress. When he deserted her, there
was no door open to receive her but the chakla. One pretty girl said she had been deceived
by a bad woman, under promise of employment.

Another, with face partly covered by her hands for very shame, said her husband had

sold her to the mahaldarni for money. By graphic gesture and with the help of the few
English words she knew, another told of the agonies of slow starvation until at last her
courage gave way, and she came to the British soldiers, who were willing to feed her
starving body for the sake of its worth as an instrument of self-indulgence. This is the only
right to existence accorded to many women, even in so-called Christian countries, where
labour is hard to obtain.

A little girl of ten, gaudily arrayed in the style of the others, thus publishing her

candidature for a life of vice before she knew its meaning in the least, played about among
the older ones. A little boy of two, with beautiful forehead, and other features that betrayed
his English blood, had been forsaken by his father, who had, the girls said, “gone home to
England.” We recall having seen other children of Saxon type at Lucknow, Meerut, and at
Peshawar, left in the same way by fathers who were officers of the British army in India.
While the attempt is being made to create sentiment in favour of protecting the “innocent
wives and children” of British soldiers, it might be well to inquire which wives and which
children—those that already exist in India, or those that have not yet materialised in
England. God knows which are the real wives and the real children of soldiers who have,
in many cases in the past, entered into a contract with unsophisticated native women who
never dreamed that it was anything less than lawful marriage!

“These bad women promise us everything and then betray us into this life,” said several

of the girls, referring to the treachery of the mahaldarnis. They told us of a girl who had
recently been set on fire by an angry soldier, and had been burned to death, and related the
story of cruelties practised upon them by drunken soldiers. A native guard in uniform drew
near to listen. These military guards were there all the time, and were changed every few
hours, the girls told us. As the mahaldarnis who own the girls are always at hand to watch
against the escape of the discontented, the work of the guard seems to be chiefly to keep
order and to prevent the entrance of native men, as the latter are strictly forbidden to
associate with women kept for the English soldiers.

Two women of mature years now approached, and we were informed that they were the

mahaldarnis. One lived there all the time, and the other was there with her girls for the
time being. They said they had each a salary of ten rupees a month from the Government.
They also took a share of the girls’ earnings. Another time we went to the hut, close to the
chakla, where one of them lived, and she proudly displayed to us some of the
recommendations she held from British officers. They were grim and horrid reading; we
will give but a single illustration:—

“Ameer has supplied the 2nd Derby Regiment with prostitutes for the past three

years, and I recommend her to any other regiment requiring her for a similar capacity.

“S. G. M——,

“Quartermaster 2nd Derby Regiment.”

As to the methods to which these mahaldarnis resort to procure girls, it has been touched

upon in the personal stories of girls already given, and will be emphasized necessarily
more and more as our story continues. Mahaldarni Rahiman, met in another Cantonment,
told us a story closely resembling the methods described in a former chapter (page 20), by
a Government official. She said in substance: “If a girl is not sufficiently attractive to earn
a living, I send her away and get another in her place. I get the women from the bazaar
when more are needed. I go to the Cantonment magistrate, and he gives me five, ten,
twenty, or fifty rupees, as the case may demand. To buy a very young, attractive girl I will
be furnished with fifty rupees. There is always plenty of money to get them with.”

When opportunity afforded, we called upon the other mahaldarni, and she likewise

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showed us her recommendations in the handwriting of British military officials, and other
interesting papers which she had carefully preserved. There was an original copy of her
appointment as mahaldarni to a certain regiment, closing with permission for her to go to
Ferozepore to attend to “certain business of her bazaar.” This was signed by the Colonel of
the regiment. There was a letter written to her by the Staff-Surgeon of the same regiment, a
few days later, saying:—

“Mahaldarni, Seventh Lancers,—You have not brought your women from Meerut

and Ferozepore. You will have to do it or the Colonel will think you have broken faith,
as it is now fifteen days since you received your appointment.”

The Staff-Surgeon evidently thought it an easy task to buy or entrap twelve or fifteen

girls in as many days. Then there was a copy of a letter addressed by herself to the
Cantonment magistrate, which she had employed some one to write in English for her. This
letter stated that she had brought four new girls with her who had several thousand rupees’
worth of jewelry with them (probably a lie by way of excuse), but their brothers had
accompanied them (to effect their rescue?) and she asked the magistrate to require the girls
to remain in the chakla, and then their brothers could not get near them. Native men not
being allowed about the chakla, brothers and husbands who might be bent upon the rescue
of female members of their families, who had been enticed away or stolen by the
mahaldarnis, could be kept at a safe distance.

At other times we had opportunities to revisit this large chakla. There were about one

hundred inmates, and accommodations for many more. The building was scarcely less than
a huge fortification. High blank walls—excepting tiny well-barred windows high up,
surrounded an open space of ground, or court; and the inner side of the wall was lined with
small numbered rooms for the accommodation of the inmates. Most of the girls, here as
elsewhere, because of constant association with British men, had learned to speak a little
English, while a few spoke quite fluently. Although we always were accompanied by a
good interpreter, yet often we were able to converse quite freely ourselves with the girls.

Our interpreter recognised one girl on our first visit, whom we shall call by her

nickname, which was “Katy,” and asked her if she was not the girl who had run after her
carriage two or three times, begging the interpreter to take her away. Katy said she had
done so, and with streaming tears reiterated her desire to escape from a life of which she
was so ashamed, and pleaded with us to take her. When we consented to take her that very
day, she faltered, and then decided that she did not dare try to go until after the following
day, which was the day of the bi-weekly examination, but she said that if we would give
her our address she would come herself on the day following. As we drove away in our
cab, and the girls waved farewell, poor Katy, with pitiful and despairing countenance,
burst into tears. Her face haunted us for days, and as she did not come of her own accord to
us, in a few days we went after her again.

We learned afterwards that Katy had made ineffectual attempts to come to us. When we

returned to the chakla for her, we found her without difficulty, and told her our errand.
With glowing, happy face, she arrayed herself in her best garments, arranged her hair
neatly and with childish simplicity, and leaving her few earthly belongings behind, got into
the cab with us. But soon her face clouded, she grew apprehensive, and said she would
have to go and get permission of the Cantonment magistrate before she could venture to
leave. Anticipating not the slightest difficult...